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November 22 Daily Reading- Read the Bible in 1 Year
11 Plays2 days ago
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Today we will complete the book of Acts with Chapter 28:1-11 and 14-31.
In our reading today we will read about God's great provision. Paul and the survivors of the shipwreck learned that they landed on the island of Malta, where they experienced God's divine provision through the natives, who showed them all unusual kindness. Paul received divine protection from the bite of a viper and when he and his friends were invited to stay at the leader's house, Paul healed the leader's father. This prompted other people who wanted to be healed to seek healing by Paul. As a result, great honor was heaped on Paul and his friends and when they finally left the island the natives provided all they needed for their voyage. After Paul finally arrived in Rome he got to live in a house under house arrest rather than put in a jail cell. Eventually Paul rented his own house where he taught about Jesus and God's kingdom and nobody stopped him.
In our discussion for daily application we will talk about God's amazing provision and once again see that things could have been worse. Although going through the experience of the shipwreck was difficult and Paul was still in jail, God provided encouragement, comfort, and all the supplies they needed, even eventually a home that Paul could live in while teaching people about Jesus and God's kingdom with no one stopping him! It will be during this time of house arrest that Paul will also be moved to write more letters to Jesus' communities. Throughout it all, God was helping Paul, working good into everything. Let us all be encouraged to have faith in God whenever we are going through difficult times, knowing that even though things look bad, they could be a lot worse. God is with us, taking care of us throughout everything. We are never alone. We will gain experiences where we can be witnesses to others and share our faith with others so that we also may encourage others to have faith in God during THEIR difficult circumstances, just like how I shared today how God was with me when my bedroom flooded the last time.
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome back everybody. Today is November 22nd. Together we are here for our daily Bible reading out of the Day by Day Kids Bible written by Karen Henley.
00:00:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Robin. I'm with In the Family Way Coaching and I am going to be your reader. If you are following along on your bookmarking commitment calendar, guess what?
00:00:29
Speaker
That's right. It's time to take it out. It's time to get your sticker ready. It's time to get whatever you are using to cross off your days. Because we're going to hear the Bible today.
Paul's Journey on Malta
00:00:43
Speaker
Well, I am so glad that we are here again. We are completing the book of Acts today with chapter 28. And today we are going to be seeing God's great provision.
00:00:55
Speaker
So we want to keep that in mind as we read today's reading so that we can be on the lookout for God's provision. Helps us to understand a little bit about what we're going to be seeing so that we can keep our eyes open for that.
00:01:13
Speaker
Today, Paul is recovering from a shipwreck. Yesterday, we saw that they that they landed on an island, and they did not know where it was until they got there.
00:01:25
Speaker
And they just seemed to barely make it. Everybody was scared to death. People were trying to jump ship. Paul had to do a lot of convincing. And his own life was even saved by the centurion, Julius, who was in charge of all of the captives there, the prisoners.
00:01:43
Speaker
So today we're going to see after they have landed on this island and what happened then. So it turns out they were on an island called Malta.
00:01:54
Speaker
It was raining and it was cold, but the people on the island showed us unusual kindness and they were very kind. They welcomed the men from the ship.
00:02:07
Speaker
The island people built a fire for them, and Paul helped by carrying some sticks. He put the sticks on the fire. Now the fire was hot, and the heat made a snake crawl out of the sticks.
00:02:23
Speaker
The snake bit Paul's hand and held on. The island people saw this happen, And they said that this man must surely be a killer.
00:02:35
Speaker
He has gotten away from the sea, but now the goddess Justice is paying him back for his crime, and he won't live.
00:02:46
Speaker
But Paul shook the snake off, and it fell into the fire, and Paul was fine. Now the people thought for sure that Paul was going to get sick and they thought that he might just fall down dead all of a sudden.
00:03:02
Speaker
So they kept watching him for a very long time. But guess what? Nothing bad happened to him. Our big Bible tells us that the snake was a viper.
00:03:17
Speaker
So the people changed their minds about Paul and now they said Paul was a god. Now there was a big house nearby and it belonged to the leader of the island.
00:03:28
Speaker
He welcomed Paul and his friends into his house. He treated them very well and they were there for three days. Now the leader's father was sick, it so happened.
00:03:43
Speaker
It turned out that he was in bed and felt very hot because he had dysentery. So Paul went to go see him. So Paul prayed, and then he put his hands on the man, and the man got well.
00:03:59
Speaker
After this, other sick people who were on the island started coming to see Paul to get well too. So everyone looked up to Paul and his friends.
00:04:12
Speaker
Three months went by, and it was time to set sail again. There was a ship at the island that had stayed there all winter, and the ship had the figures of the twin gods on front.
00:04:25
Speaker
Julius, Paul, and his friends got on that ship, and the island people treated them very kindly and gave them whatever they needed for the trip.
00:04:38
Speaker
And then they sailed off to Italy, where Rome was. In a few days, they came to a town in Italy, and some of Jesus' followers there asked them to stay for a week.
00:04:51
Speaker
So they did. But at last, they did get to Rome. And Jesus' followers in Rome had heard that Paul was coming, so they traveled out of the city to go meet Paul.
00:05:04
Speaker
And just seeing them, cheered Paul up, and he thanked God.
Paul in Rome and Teaching
00:05:11
Speaker
Paul got to live in a house in Rome. It was his own house that he paid rent for.
00:05:17
Speaker
But a guard had to be with him. So he was still under what we call house arrest. Three days passed and then Paul asked the Jewish leaders who were there in Rome to come together.
00:05:32
Speaker
Paul talked to them. He said to them, I have done nothing wrong against our Jewish people, and I've done nothing wrong against our way of life. But the Jews in Jerusalem took me to the Romans, and the Romans asked me questions.
00:05:48
Speaker
They wanted to let me go because I didn't do anything that I should be killed for. But the Jewish people would not let me be set free. So I had to ask for Caesar to judge me.
00:06:01
Speaker
Now, I don't have anything against my own people, the Jews, but I am chained up because I believe in Jesus, said Paul. And that is why I wanted to talk to you.
00:06:14
Speaker
We did not get any letters about you, said the Jewish leaders, and nobody has said anything bad about you. But we do want to hear what you have to say because lots of people say things against Jesus's followers.
00:06:28
Speaker
So they made plans to meet with Paul another day. And when that day came, even more Jews came to see Paul. And Paul talked about God's kingdom from morning until night.
00:06:44
Speaker
And he showed how the law and the prophets told about Jesus. There were some people there who believed Paul, but there were others who would not believe.
00:06:56
Speaker
And they could not agree. At last, Paul told them that the Holy Spirit had spoken through Isaiah and that he had told the truth. Isaiah said to tell God's people these words.
00:07:13
Speaker
You will hear, but you will not understand. You will see, but you will not know what it means. And that's because the hearts of my people are hard.
00:07:27
Speaker
They do not care about me. Their ears can hardly hear and their eyes are closed. If their eyes were open, they would see.
00:07:40
Speaker
and if their ears were open, they would hear. And their hearts would understand. And then they would turn back to me. And then I would make them well.
00:07:54
Speaker
I want you to know something, said Paul. God will let people who are not Jewish know about Jesus, and they will listen, and they will be saved.
00:08:06
Speaker
Now, after Paul said this, the Jews began to leave. Now, Paul rented his own house in Rome, and he stayed there for two years. He welcomed anyone who came to visit him, and he was brave.
00:08:20
Speaker
He taught about God's kingdom, And he taught about Jesus and nobody stopped him. And that is the end of the book of Acts as well as the end of our reading today.
Reflections on God's Provision
00:08:40
Speaker
Well, we had some exciting things going on and we see God's great provision. i I am always so sad to see the end of a book come, aren't you? but but I wish that Matthew had written longer about what had gone on with Paul, but it was already pretty long.
00:08:59
Speaker
In the beginning here out of our chapter, we see that they landed on the island of Malta. And in our big Bible, it says that the island people showed them unusual kindness.
00:09:14
Speaker
Now, that means that it was not customary for them to be treated with that level of kindness that they were treated with. This was not simply yeah yeah
00:09:28
Speaker
coincidence. There we go. I couldn't find my C word there. Sorry about that. This was God's provision. God had set everything up ahead of time to provide for Paul and everybody with them.
00:09:43
Speaker
The island people showed them kindness. They built them a fire and they provided food. And then there was a viper and the viper attacked Paul when it came out of the wood.
00:09:58
Speaker
And we were it was so reminiscent of, do you remember that Jesus was also reminiscent of the snake that Moses had shown on a staff?
00:10:11
Speaker
When the people were traveling in the desert, there were snakes and they had complained about the snakes. And God told Moses to make a staff with a picture of a snake on it. with And they were to look at it if they got bit.
00:10:26
Speaker
And if they looked at it after being bit, they would not get sick and die. And Jesus was also held up on a stake on on the wood for crucifixion.
00:10:38
Speaker
And all of us who gaze upon him and believe and have faith, because that when they would look, they would believe that they would be not healed and that they would not be sick, that they would be fine.
00:10:50
Speaker
And so that is um a foreshadowing. we call. And so we see completion. And even Jesus told them that they would not be ah affected by the snake bites.
00:11:07
Speaker
So we see that God is always providing and that Jesus even told about these things. So when the people saw that this viper had bitten Paul,
00:11:21
Speaker
they They claimed that the they're that the Greek goddess, Justice, was having her vengeance and she was bringing justice because he must be a killer. Because it was also seen as common belief that a shipwreck or being killed out on the sea was a place where the ancient gods would be able to um exact their revenge, to be able to exact justice on people. if they wanted to. So it was very common that if somebody were to have trouble at sea, that they would be interpreting that as justice from the gods. And we see that that was even the case, like when when Jonah was traveling. and And in that case, it was definitely true because God was looking for Jonah. And so as soon as ah the storm came up and it was
00:12:17
Speaker
tossing the ship and they were having water coming all up into the ship the sailors said which one of you have done something which one of us has done something that the gods are angry about and jonah said it's me you don't need to look any further you don't need to cast lots they were going to cast lots to see who it was that it fell to and jonah said it's me so it was very commonly recognized that that that was um
00:12:45
Speaker
vengeance upon people through the gods was through shipwreck. So the fact that these people had survived the shipwreck, but then immediately Paul was bitten by a snake. It was also seen that snakes were were commonly um believed to be delivering justice from the gods as well. So the fact that he escaped both a shipwreck and snake bite was very telling.
00:13:15
Speaker
supposedly, to these people. Now, we know that God was aware of their beliefs. And so God brought Paul and all of the people to this island where they would be believing these things.
00:13:31
Speaker
And then they thought Paul must be a god because he survived the the snake bite. And I'm sure Paul would have told them otherwise because he never allowed anybody to worship him We've had an example of that. And that would be against Paul's character. And they don't go into him ah saying, no, no, I'm not a God, but I'm sure that we can be rest assured that that's exactly what he would have done.
00:13:55
Speaker
And then he was they were welcomed into the home of the leader of the island who had a father who would just so happened to be sick. And so Paul healed him.
00:14:09
Speaker
And so this put them in great favor. And our big Bible tells us that when they left, I'm going to read the words that our big Bible uses.
00:14:20
Speaker
It says that,
00:14:32
Speaker
that they, on verse 10 of chapter 28, it's, we'll start at verse nine. It says, after this happened, after he had healed the man, who the father of the leader, says, after this happened, the rest of the sick on the island started coming and getting healed as well.
00:14:50
Speaker
And then they also heaped honors on us. So they were heaped with honor. And when we sailed, they put on board all the supplies we needed.
00:15:03
Speaker
So it's very reminiscent also of when the Jewish people left Egypt and God had caused them to to the Egyptians to be favorably disposed or to be in favor of the people leaving.
00:15:17
Speaker
And so when the Jewish people asked for supplies, they gave them everything. It says, and in this way, you will plunder the land. And so they left with a great deal of riches when they left Egypt.
00:15:32
Speaker
So in the same way that God provided for the Israelite people as they were preparing to leave on their great exodus, so did God also provide through the Maltese natives.
00:15:48
Speaker
He made Paul and the the other people there, his friends, to be favorably faithful. looked upon. They heaped great honor on him and his friends. says on them.
00:15:59
Speaker
So it wasn't just on Paul, but it was on all of them. And so they provided everything that they needed. So do you see how wonderful our God is? He uses circumstances that are already taking place to do incredible things.
00:16:17
Speaker
nothing is impossible for him. He uses ordinary means to do extraordinary things. And our God is just so gracious and so kind.
00:16:28
Speaker
And you could go so far as to say that that he rewarded Paul's faith because while they were on that ship and they were tossing about in the storm and they didn't see the sun or the stars for over two weeks time,
00:16:46
Speaker
And everybody was so scared. they They wanted to jump ship and try to swim somewhere. They were trying to get out. They were so discouraged. And Paul told them, no, Jesus, or an angel rather, had come to him at that point and told them that they would live.
00:17:03
Speaker
All of them.
00:17:06
Speaker
And God protected all of them because Paul had faith. And he told them, he said, I belong to God. And I believe that this will happen.
00:17:18
Speaker
So you too, you belong to God. And in that same way that God provided for Paul. And in every way, he will provide for you. He will provide for me.
00:17:31
Speaker
and it's also so consistent with what we've spoken about before with Jesus telling us that we need to seek first the kingdom of God. And then God will give us what we need. He knows what we need before we ask.
00:17:44
Speaker
He knows we need all these things. He knew what Paul and his friends needed. and he and all of the um prisoners who were on board being transported.
00:17:56
Speaker
and God took care of all of them on account of Paul and his faith. How gracious is our God and to provide and how loving to provide for everybody.
00:18:11
Speaker
oh I'm so thankful that our God is so wonderful. And I'm so thankful for this account that Matthew gave us in the book of Acts. And we see also that Paul, once again, was not put into a jail cell, but that he had a house that was rented.
00:18:28
Speaker
i am curious how Paul afforded to rent a house. I imagine he was being provided for through the the believers there. So that's an just further testament to how important it is that we provide for one another. As Paul told us before, it's not so that one may be rich while another is poor or so that one may be well off while another is lacking, but it's so that there may be enough for everybody.
00:18:56
Speaker
And God provided however it was. that Paul would be living in a house. And not only that, but look at all the trouble that he had faced throughout his ministry.
00:19:09
Speaker
And so he had spent over two years there in the district where he was born before he was transferred to Rome. And our story ends off that it says that he spent more than two years living in this home.
00:19:27
Speaker
where he with his house was rented. And even from when the first moment that he arrived, he was given his own house. It could have been a lot worse.
00:19:37
Speaker
Right, Pearl? It could have been worse. ah There are so many times where the circumstances that we go through could be a lot worse.
00:19:50
Speaker
But our faith is rewarded and our God takes care of us so that we may have to go through things that are difficult, but he doesn't allow us to have too much.
00:20:04
Speaker
Things could be worse. Well, I hope that you are encouraged and that no matter what you are going through, that you realize that it could be worse. And I pray that you will see God's provision that he is giving you. i have an example for that as well, where it could have been worse. I know yesterday I shared about my husband and how it could have been worse because God ah provided healing for him where everybody said it was not going to happen.
00:20:36
Speaker
Periodically, my bedroom floods. And I remember the last time that it flooded. I had been praying that God would send only just enough rain and there was a great deal of water.
00:20:48
Speaker
And my bedroom is a garage conversion. So it was like this before we bought the house. And so we didn't know it was going to flood when we first got here. And then it was it was quite surprising.
00:21:01
Speaker
And it's seasonal and it's not all the time. It's only when we have a great deal of rain and the creek behind us overflows through our neighbor's property and then onto our property. And then oftentimes during that, at that point, the ground is fully saturated. So so it will even come up from under the ground through the cracks in the, in the floor, in the cement, through the footing.
00:21:28
Speaker
so it's it's a little disconcerting and in the very beginning uh i god really has taught me a lot with this dealing with the flooding um before i mean and because this was happening i was i was obviously very scared and i was freaking out going oh my gosh my bedroom is flooding with water because you don't know how
Personal Stories and Testimonies
00:21:48
Speaker
far it's gonna go and after it having happened a number of times we have a pretty good idea of how far it's gonna go and thankfully it never actually gets into any other part of the house because the rest of the house is higher than my partially garage converted bedroom.
00:22:04
Speaker
So ah i remember the last time that it flooded and i was outside and my friend Julie has always been such a great source of encouragement because she' ah she's taught me to give it to God because they had a situation with a fire where They had a very bit, we had we had see we had these terrible fires here where we are located. And she prayed, her and her family prayed for over different areas of their property. And where they had prayed, God had protected. And where they didn't pray, they had forgotten that area was burnt.
00:22:44
Speaker
So that faith and that testimony, that witnessing taught me to give it to God as well and to pray. And so i prayed. that God would not allow it to flood.
00:22:57
Speaker
And he gave me his peace. And so even though, and and I had come to, re I had resolved that at that point, I had his peace that even if it did flood, i was still within God's control.
00:23:10
Speaker
i said, Lord, if you let it flood, then then it is then it is something you are permitting. And I gave it to God. And so I was at peace. And so I moved everything out of the bedroom. The bed stays, but everything else kind of moves and we just take up the rugs because we don't keep carpet in there anymore, obviously.
00:23:28
Speaker
And so ah I just waited and and we have pumps around the room too on the outside, but there's only so much it can do because we're talking about a lot of water.
00:23:40
Speaker
And I remember waiting and just watching, but I just, and I waited in the living room and I would go take a look and, I would prepare as best as I could. And I just watched and I waited and it did flood, but not nearly as bad as it had in the past.
00:24:01
Speaker
It was very doable. It was minimal. And I just remember being so thankful to God that it could have been so much worse and it wasn't.
00:24:16
Speaker
So I remember that every single time. i can't forget it. It's that God took care of us. It did flood, but it was minimal. I almost feel like it was like when Abraham um had to take Isaac up for the sacrifice.
00:24:35
Speaker
And he told Isaac, ah God will take care of the sacrifice. When Isaac asked, and he said, well, we have the fire and we have the wood, but where's the sacrifice? And Abraham said, God will provide for that, Isaac. And so he in faith, he he took his only child, his son, and he laid him down on the altar.
00:24:56
Speaker
And when God knew that he really did have the faith to obey, That was when he said, Isaac or Abraham, I see that you really do have faith.
00:25:09
Speaker
He said, you don't need to take him off of there. If you look, you will see that there is a ram with its horns caught in a thicket bush. And you will use that for your sacrifice. Because I know you did not withhold even your only son from me.
00:25:23
Speaker
And I feel like because I was willing to give that to God, that he saw that I really was able to give it to him, that it was minimal.
00:25:39
Speaker
And it was, it could have been worse. And I don't think I have flooded since that time. Things have happened where God has saved us from the flooding.
00:25:50
Speaker
And that is my daily application, how I remember how God has provided and how things could have been worse. That it may have seemed like everything was horrible. They were caught in shipwreck, Paul and his friends. They they had so many things seeming to go against them.
00:26:08
Speaker
Paul was still technically in jail. but he was in his own home. And now he had people coming to see him instead of him traveling.
00:26:20
Speaker
And it says that he welcomed everybody and nobody stopped him. It says here, he taught about Jesus and nobody stopped him.
00:26:35
Speaker
Wow, it could have definitely been worse. Well, I hope that you are encouraged by both my testimony and by what we see today in Acts chapter 28. I hope that you feel that God has lit your light today.
00:26:52
Speaker
And i hope that you will be hungry for more of God's word to come back again and join us for our next daily reading. As we begin the book of Colossians, which is a letter.
00:27:04
Speaker
Written to the people of I don't exactly know how to say that, that's town that ah area where they're from, Colossa. And they were Colossians. And he wrote that letter from Rome.
00:27:15
Speaker
So Paul is being used and he is not going to waste the time that God is giving him. God has purpose for him. God is always working everything to good, even if we can't see it right at the time.
00:27:30
Speaker
But God plopped him down there in his own house and he used him to write letters to to more communities that we're going to read in the coming month.
00:27:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me. If you wouldn't mind, please, I would like to encourage you to click your light button after you have finished listening or watching today. That light button, you remember what it looks like. It looks like a thumbs up. It looks like a heart. It looks like a share.
00:28:00
Speaker
i would love it if you could find somebody to share this with because together we are teaching people and spreading the word about reading God's word.
00:28:11
Speaker
Thank you for helping me to spread the word about reading God's word. This is how we receive so much encouragement, not just for education, but for encouragement. And this is preparing us for those difficult times that that will come, that we can look back and remember these lessons that we have learned by reading and hearing of the Bible so that we too can grow, have God grow our faith so that we will trust in him when these times come, remembering that if he did it for Paul and he did it for Robin, he will do it for me too.
00:28:46
Speaker
Because that's how I had my faith grow was by Julie's testimony. And I said to myself, if he did it for Julie and her family, he will do it for me too. So I hope that you are encouraged to remember these examples and call upon our great God to be with you in whatever circumstance you may have to to go through that is difficult, to know that he will carry you through it, and it could have been worse.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:29:13
Speaker
Have a fantastic rest of your day, whatever day you get around to watching or a hearing this daily Bible reading for November 22nd. And until you see me again next time, i hope you have a very blessed day.